401V Poster Online - Virtual Posters
Tuesday June 07, 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM

Authors:
Tzitziki Lemus Vergara ¹; Leonid Kruglyak ²

Affiliations:
1) University of California Los Angeles; 2) Howard Hughes Medical Institute

Keywords:
Complex traits

The gut microbiome influences many of its host traits. In humans, disruption of the microbiota balance has been associated with various diseases including obesity, metabolic syndrome, and autoimmune disorders. However, it is challenging to study the mechanisms by which bacteria influence their human hosts due to the complexity of bacterial communities and the genetic diversity of humans. The nematode Caenorhabditis elegans has recently been used as a model organism to study the influence of the microbiome and diet on several phenotypes. Studies have shown that the worm microbiome/diet affects important traits such as development, life span, metabolism, and resistance to chemotherapy drugs, but the underlying mechanisms are not well understood.
I recently discovered that resistance to cold stress in a related nematode, Caenorhabditis tropicalis, is affected by the worm diet. Interestingly, different C. tropicalis isolates are differently affected depending on their diet. Isolate JU1639 was highly susceptible to cold stress when grown on E. coli HT115 but survived when grown on OP50. Genetic analysis suggests that cold stress resistance is a dominant trait, and initial mapping revealed a potential QTL on chromosome III. Currently, I am working on refining and validating the QTL associated with cold stress resistance, and in dissecting the bacterial elements and pathways involved in the cold stress survival difference. The genetic variants uncovered by this study will further our understanding of the mechanisms by which diet and microbiome modulate an organism's phenotype, and how this modulation depends on the host genetic variation.